Saturday was the Tenth Annual Black Barbeque, a yearly opportunity to drink and eat to excess and demonstrate to a large group of my friends what bad taste I have in men. One year, for example, I managed to bring Chris The Douche F, whom everyone at the party already knew. And hated. And then he was incredibly rude to my friend Katy, and then repeated all of his insults on his lame podcast show because, again, douche. Their behavior patterns are nothing if not predictable. And then he told me he was married. Did I mention we were there on a date? And then he spent the rest of the night hitting on Bonnie. This year, I brought a squirrely little douche who spent the day mocking me in front of my friends, and the only reason I didn’t break up with him on the spot was because I needed a ride home. It’s becoming a pattern. 
Unfortunately, I couldn’t go all-out food-wise this year, but I was more than happy to take part in others’ excesses. The illustrious founder brought not one, but two Bacon Fatties. A Bacon Fatty, if you are not familiar with the term, is bacon wrapped in chorizo which is wrapped in latticed bacon and then is smoked for several hours. This dish is also known as A Heart Attack On A Plate and three bites are truly more than enough for all but men of the stoutest hearts and best insurance plans. Richard brought a giant freaking geoduck much like this except I failed to capture the inevitable similar pose moment on my phone because I live a life of failure. There was a geoduck bris, and we were left with a rather unfortunate length of neck-skin. 
Before I get to this next bit, I should clarify: The Black Barbeque is named thus because all attendees are required to wear black. If an attendee neglects to wear black clothing, this attendee will be punished. If this attendee is there as someone’s +1, they are both punished. God help them if they wear white. This year’s punishment was to drink a skunky sun-warmed O’Doul’s, with nought to chase it. Cutback to the bris–at one point or another, this long, repellent bit of skin was flung at me, and I, like any good accelerator, found a way to make things worse. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and ghouls, I give you the world’s very first Geoduck Beer Cozy. 
Eventually the punishment evolved to having to remove the geoduck skin with one’s teeth before drinking the near-beer. Time passed, and the skin became more and more leathery. If Ed Gein had designed a beer bottle, it would look much like this. It loomed large in my mind, especially as no one had yet arrived who deserved a punishing. I feel strongly about these sorts of things–if, at the beginning of a movie, they show us a bomb, I have an expectation that bomb will go off at some point during the film. If it does not, it’s a disappointment and a waste. This is the sort of thought process that eventually caused me to inform the host that if no one shows up who deserves to be punished, *I* will take this punishment myself. For the good of…well…something. 
When the time came, sadly, I didn’t take it like a man. Oh, I eventually got it all down, yes. And felt sick for some time afterward, yes. But I didn’t earn any style points in the process. Protip: Geoduck skin, once leathery, will stick to your teeth, much in the manner of a fruit roll-up when bitten into. 
Bonnie approves of this message.
Black Barbeque X
